Harvest Home

Doesn't the allotment look smart?  Obviously, we must have been looking after it assiduously throughout the summer...

Er, no!  Having pledged to keep this blog updated regularly, I've actually spent most of the summer on a very long narrowboat journey from our home mooring at Kidsgrove down to Godalming and back.  I'll be including a few items from that journey in future posts as we stopped off at several places of horticultural interest but today it's time to celebrate a great crop of taters and squashes.

'Kestrel' potatoes

We lifted the usual Kestrel second-earlies a week ago and were pleased to find them in good condition with few signs of slug damage or millipede ingress, which has been a major problem in previous years despite earlier liftings.  After a few days to rest my back, I set to work on the main crop; 2 beds (12 tubers planted in each) of Pink Fir Apple, one of Golden Wonder (dotted with random reds and blacks from a couple of years ago) and one of Highland Burgundy Red.

Pink Fir Apple - less knobbly then usual!

All three varieties gave good yields of largely undamaged tubers of a decent size and shape. The PFAs in particular were bigger than in previous years and much more uniform, less eccentric shapes, although there are a few spectacular monsters as usual. 

The other pleasant surprise has been a superb crop of pumpkins and squashes, considering the lack of care they had throughout the summer.  I grew several different varieties from packs of out-of-date seed, with good rates of germination despite that.  The varieties grown were 'Small Sugar', 'Crown Prince', 'Avalon' butternut and a spaghetti squash, along with an ornamental swan gourd.

Squash - small sugar - growing in midsummer

Scrambled over a cane framework to keep the young fruits away from damp soil and slugs, they would have benefited from more pruning and training, and watering during the hottest periods perhaps but, despite being left for months without attention, we have a decent crop, although the swan gourds aren't very swany, having developed straight necks as they hung from the framework!

Some of the squashes

We'll just have to make sure we eat them in good time,  They're too good to waste on Halloween lanterns!

Spring Sunshine

Back garden in bloom

Due to funding problems, I've been on short-time from my Citizens' Advice job for the last couple of months.  It makes doing even part of my usual job tricky, as it's easy to lose track of what's going on in the team and in the complex world of Social Security law and, unsurprisingly, my pay has dropped through the floor too.  However, the compensation for all of this has been that there's probably no better season in which to have extra time off.  The garden is looking the best it has since we moved in and the allotment is also unusually trim and tidy.  I've even finished off a few decorating snags around the house that have been outstanding for a long while.

Garden veg patch

It's been warm enough to risk planting out the courgettes, squashes and runner beans, using home-grown poles from our coppiced hazel as well as the long prunings from the Bramley apple tree.  The latter have been fashioned into a framework to support the squashes as climbing plants rather than just scrambling across the ground, which I'm hoping will keep the fruits away from slugs and damp soil.

The globe artichokes are doing well, although may have to get the chop early in the autumn to allow the tomatoes in the greenhouse to get enough sunshine to ripen; at the moment, they actually provide helpful shade to their pots and roots.

The greenhouse gets a little shade first thing in the morning from the wisteria, now in full bloom and looking great.  We can't see it from the kitchen as the clematis arch is in the way and has got badly overgrown, although I can't prune it as there is a dunnock nesting in it!

Some of the sarracenias have been soaking up the sunshine - and a few wasps and flies too!

A couple of unusual features in the front garden are the sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) which grows around the base of a couple of the apple trees and an experiment that worked surprisingly well, planting Spanish bluebells in the pots either side of the front door.  The only problem with the latter is trying to decide whether to leave them there to die down or lift them to replant the pots.  They are in an awkward dry shade spot which makes replacing them with anything permanent quite tricky.

I had a very successful plant sale last month and have been selling spare flowers and veg plants in the office on my odd days in.  If the reduced hours are likely to persist, I'll also be promoting my gardening services again, so may finally get the opportunity to rehome the last of the hydrangea cuttings. 

Fully Clothed

Herb garden in spring sunshine

I noticed from a few prank posts on social media that today was supposedly "World Naked Gardening Day".  I can assure you that here in chilly North Staffordshire, under leaden skies and cut by a cold northerly breeze, it was no such thing!  More like "Two Jumpers, Thick Cord Trousers and Woolly Socks Gardening Day" (ie. Normal Gardening Day), although it's a pity it wasn't suitable weather for cultivating au naturel as it might have guaranteed there would be no follow-up visits from the two earnest ladies who turned up this morning peddling their particular version of God and caught me just as I was expecting a friend to drop in to collect some plants.

#WorldNakedGardeningDay it may be but the garden itself has very few bare patches, with the greenery for the perennials growing strongly as the bulb foliage starts to die down.  The photos below were taken a couple of weeks ago, since when the daffodils have faded somewhat, although the aquilegias are now putting on a burst of growth and buds and the bluebells are in full bloom. 

Back garden border

With such lush planting there is little space for weeds and the ground is also protected from the sun and cold, drying winds that have been such a feature of this spring. 

Hellebore, peony and astillbe foliage, with daffodils and snowdrop leaves.

Overall, from starting early after a mild winter, I would say my flowering plants are now starting to run a little late compared to other years, although the late April snow probably checked a lot of them.  This was the dusting on the back garden on the morning of 26th April - probably the latest snow we've seen here in 14 years.

April showers - of snow!

The likely casualty may be the pear crop, since the plum blossom had just about finished and the apple hadn't quite burst.  It will be a shame if so, as the pears had a good restorative pruning last year and produced a lot of blossom this year, more-or-less simultaneously, so we should have been in with a chance of a decent harvest.

Fan-trained pear tree

The daffodils are over for this year, but here are some 'Blushing Lady' blooms taken last month, a sturdy but graceful cultivar which did very well in pots on the patio this spring and last and toned in well with the softer pink of the 'Salome' bulbs still flowering in the borders more than ten years after they were first planted.

Hopefully we can look forward to warmer days and a drop of rain soon!

Parks and Recreation

Knypersley Reservoir

I've often taken time out from gardening to enjoy walking in the glorious countryside of North Staffs, South Cheshire and the Peak District.  We're fortunate to have several lovely country parks with lakes - some natural, some reservoirs, some reclaimed - fairly close to our home, including Astbury Mere, Knypersley Reservoir (Greenway Country Park), Bathpool Park and Westport Lake.

Bluebells, Greenway Country Park

Westport Lake is the only one of these within the boundaries of the City of Stoke-on-Trent and is the second closest to home, as well as being the most accessible in all weathers.  It has the added advantage of being on one of our regular canal routes, the Trent and Mersey to (or from) Stoke-on-Trent, so is sometimes a first or last stop on a journey.

Winter walk around Westport Lake

Considering that it is reclaimed industrial land rather than a natural landscape, the wildlife to be seen on and around it is remarkable, especially in winter when the lake hosts a wide variety of migrating wildfowl, and it was the first place I had the privilege of glimpsing the courtship display of Great Crested Grebes and the only place I have ever been close enough to a wren to snatch a photo.

Great Crested Grebes at Westport Lake

Great Crested Grebes can also be seen at Central Forest Park, another reclaimed wildlife haven with a lovely lake and terrific play area, skate park and family facilities.  If Stoke-on-Trent kids are fortunate enough to have parents or grandparents able to take them to the parks, there is some impressive kit for them to enjoy: I quite envy them!

Central Forest Park

In the last few weeks, we've started exploring the City's traditional urban parks, Victorian-era creations from land donated to the huddled masses by philanthropic industrialists or aristocrats.  I wish I had visited them years ago, when there was more investment in public horticulture.  Stoke-on-Trent City Council's professional gardeners won Gold and Best in Show at a series of RHS Tatton Park Shows in the years after we moved up. 

2010 Stoke-on-Trent Council entry for RHS Tatton Park

Austerity has seen the end of both the competition - although, ironically, money was found to pay contractors from outside the city to build a Chelsea show garden a few years back - and many paid posts.  While I have some sympathy with the trend towards more sustainable and naturalist perennial planting and away from bedding plants in serried rows, there is still something quite magnificent about a bright display of under-planted tulips, locally best done in Queens Garden's, Newcastle-under Lyme.

Despite that, our visits to Tunstall Park and Longton Park have been thoroughly enjoyable.  Both are beautifully laid out and combine planted areas with elegant lakes and generous areas of playing fields and bowling greens, and more excellent play parks.  They seem to be well-used and appreciated by their local communities too. 

Tunstall Park

In Tunstall Park we walked under an arch of cherry blossom and watched newly-hatch coot chicks venturing out of their nest for the first time, under the care of attentive parents. 

In Longton Park, the semi-tame squirrels seemed more than a little put out that we had nothing to feed them, standing indignant as we walked by, and I was thrilled as only a green technology geek can be when I realised the fountain in the lower lake was solar powered!

Longton Park

Both parks deserve visiting again when the summer borders are in flower, so all credit to the staff and volunteers who manage and maintain them.  Burslem Park and Hanley Park - where a lot of restoration work is under way after a successful Heritage Lottery Bid - are next on the list.

A lot of allotmenteering

April showers have kept me indoors, or at least close to the house when gardening, today but it has been a busy week down on our allotment, getting the plot dug over and tidy ready for planting the second-early and main-crop potatoes later this week.

I confess that the allotment tends to be Jon's domain with the routine grass-cutting and digging over done by the little chap, often on my work days, because he likes it to look neat.  I have more of a strategic role usually, working out where things should go as part of the crop rotation system and then abandoning the plan as various crops outgrow their space in the greenhouses or, alternatively, fail.

One task that escaped both of us last year was clearing weeds from the patch we had dug the compost heap out onto and transplanting a mass of self-seeded foxgloves off of another.  Both plots are needed for potatoes this year so, while Jon turned over a couple of the established beds, I brought down my big stainless steel fork and spade and set about turning over and de-weeding the top bed.  The spoil has gone to make a new bank under the hedge behind the shed, incorporating a couple of "Springwatch" washing-up bowl ponds, side-by-side, and planted up with some of the hundreds of rogue foxgloves.  The soil scalped from the top bed also includes nettles which we can cut when young for green manure and later leave for the butterflies where they can now spread and seed without causing a problem.

The broad beans, which had been hardening off in the cold frame, have now been planted out and seem to have settled in well.  Hopefully they are sturdy enough to resist any minor flea-beetle damage although I must get some sticks and string round them soon to stop them toppling over during windy weather.  There is a later sowing just starting to germinate and, if I can keep the beds nicely weed-free in the early stages, I plan to plant some of my squash and pumpkin plants between the rows in early summer, so they can take advantage of the nitrogen-rich soil.

The onions will also be ready to go in soon and will take up most of the next two beds up, leaving two more for direct-sown crops like parsnips, climbing beans, sweetcorn and, perhaps, more squashes, although I will probably concentrate on growing those in the back garden.  The brassicas I have for sowing this year are for winter crops so can follow the first early potatoes in the garden and the first broad beans on the allotment, or possibly even the second earlies if I can keep them growing on in pots, and safe from slugs and butterflies, in the cold frames. 

How any of this plan will fit in with another possible long-distance boat-trip remains to be seen, of course...

Mulch Ado about Nothing

I admit it.  Sometimes I write a blog post just because I've thought of a funny title for it.  In this case, however, the subject matter did exist before I nailed the name, as we spent the first day of British Summer Time digging out the last of the rotted compost and trugging it round to the front garden to mulch the top flower bed.  To quote Master Yoda: "Adventure! Excitement! A Jedi craves not these things..."

Exciting or not, it was a necessary task.  The top bed hasn't had anything put on it by way of soil improver for years and had been starting to get a bit thin and the compost heap hadn't been dug or turned for over a year.  I did make a start on digging the compost out last autumn, only to get a nasty shock - I unearthed a rat's nest and (not nice to recall) inadvertently impaled a couple of baby ones with my fork.  Unsurprisingly, I got a decidedly rueful look from mother rat when she returned to the nest site, which I squeamishly abandoned.  As a precaution, we had the Council's exterminators in and, by the time they had finished their treatments, it was too late in the year to disturb the remainder of the heap, which has been a toad hibernation site in previous years.  Anyway, the job is done now thanks to a team effort - Jon dug out the compost and filled plastic trugs, which I carried through to the front garden, dressing around the tulips and (hopefully) smothering the annual weeds.  The perennials, some of which got covered over, will soon find their way through.

The first early taters went in too.  This year I'm trying a variety called Epicure, in one of the plots in the back garden mulched with more of the well-rotted compost, so it'll be interesting to see how well they do.  I've got Kestrel second earlies to go in on the allotment soon, along with the other old favourites Pink Fir Apple and Highland Burgundy Red, although I'm also trying out Golden Wonder which are supposedly also fairly slug-resistant.

The first batch of broad beans (Bunyard's Exhibition) are almost ready to go out too.  They've been hardening off in the cold-frame to get them acclimatised to outdoor conditions and I'll hopefully get them out on the allotment soon,  I'll use one of the lower beds which didn't have green manure on through the winter.  While the phycelia grew well again, there was not a trace of the red clover so I won't bother with that in future.  I have plans to grow many more peas and beans this year than last and already have a second sowing of broad beans and some peas (Misty) coming on in the greenhouse.  Later this month I plan to get some runner and French beans underway, so the beds that missed out in green manure can have nitrogen-fixing crops instead.

As usual, I'm experimenting with out-of-date seeds (things I've bought and also cast-offs from my green-fingered manager) and have ended up with more than fifty tomato plants from packets of 'sow by 2014' seed - plum-type San Marzano and Gardener's Delight.  As well as spares to swap and sell, I may have enough to try an outdoor crop, although in previous years my attempts have ended in a slimy, blighty failure.  Perhaps It's time to think about getting a polytunnel for the allotment?

The Little Garden Bird Watch

I blogged a couple of years ago about the uncanny nack the feathered visitors to my garden have of dispersing elsewhere over the last weekend of January, when I dutifully try to log their numbers for the RSPB's "Big Garden Bird Watch".  Since this snapshot of avian activity is so persistently unreliable, I've taken to keeping a daily record instead, not so strictly timed but still noting the largest number of a given species seen at any one time during the day as well as recording which birds we see.

We hit 'peak goldfinch' yesterday with seven of the pretty little twitterers scrapping over five potential feeding stations - three for niger seed and two for sunflower hearts.  They've become our most regular visitor all year and are rarely outnumbered except when the blue tits breed successfully and the garden is suddenly full of little fluffy balls of turquoise.  Sparrows and starlings, the garden birds which flocked to the bread-crumbed bird-table in the garden I recall from my childhood, are less frequent visitors and not at all numerous.

Great tits and coal tits - never more than a pair at a time - are also regular visitors, although shyer than the blue's.  We're occasionally treated to the sight and sound of a flock of long-tailed tits, fluttering through the garden to feed on fat-balls or peanuts, although we don't see them regularly, even during the winter when you might think they would appreciate a regular source of food.

Although the waxwings sighted across the country have never seen fit to check out the heavily-laden cotoneasters in the front garden - at least not when anyone has been looking - we have seen a fieldfare in the garden twice during very cold weather, eating both berries and the tiny crab apples on our ornamental tree. 

Another rare visitor - too quick and tiny for my camera - is the goldcrest, although that little creature did make a fleeting appearance on BGBW day, so clearly hasn't yet learned the rules from the rest of the garden birds about keeping a low profile.  That trick was perfected by the pair of siskins who dropped by the day after BGBW a couple of years after we moved in - and have never been seen here again, although we did see a flock at Trentham Gardens in February.

An unusual visitor seen this spring is blackbird with a difference - he's not all black!  Rather shy and inclined to hang about at the bottom end of the garden away from the feeders and my camera, he's leucistic with a ring of white feathers around his neck and some odd white splashed elsewhere too.  He's been arguing over territory with a couple of other blackbirds for the past few weeks and can regularly be seen running about between the cabbages.  At one point, he was being chased by a female, though that may be a bad rather than a good thing for him.  He might also wish he was a little less conspicuous of the sparrowhawk pays a visit!

Recycling.

Having resolved to update the garden blog more often, it's good to have a busy day outdoors to report.  It's been mild, if mostly cloudy, up in North Staffs today; perfect conditions for the first serious gardening day of the year and exactly right for spending too long digging, lifting and bending so that all sorts of atrophied muscles are now aching furiously.  I really must learn to pace myself at the start of the season!

As usual, seed sowing involves seeing how long it is possible to keep seed past its official use-by date and still have something viable poke through the compost.  I'm fortunate to have a keen and creative gardener for a manager, who tends to pass packets of left-overs to me when she tidies out her seed box.  Consequently, the propagator on the living room window sill - cunningly crafted from some yogurt display trays recycled from Sainsburys - is home to two pots of tomato seeds (gardeners delight and an orange plum), aubergine, sweet pepper and two squash varieties. 

Broad bean propagation - mushroom box and six loo-roll middles

A couple of small plastic mushroom boxes (my favourite mini seed trays) sown with mixed salad leaves keep them company.  These have more clear plastic recycled packaging for covers - small meat trays, which are sadly getting hard to source as more supermarkets seem to opt for vacuum-sealed packaging instead.  It may seem eco-friendly to them but, from my perspective, rather than being a handy mini-propagator, the plastic used for this is simply waste with no re-use potential at all.  Similarly, shrinking the circumference of loo-roll tubes may eco-sense for companies and consumers but makes them unsuitable as plantable pea and bean starter pots!

It's not the only change that's upset my Womble-like activity.  One of my most successful recycling initiatives in past years has been painting empty chocolate and biscuit tins in 'Roses and Castles' style and selling them - with other goods - at craft fairs and other venues, including a lovely local pub.  This little enterprise - which turns something waste into something pretty and re-usable - is under threat because so many companies now insist on embossing their brand name on the lid of the tin - 'Fox's' or 'M&S' - which makes it impossible to make an attractive job of repainting them, thus making the tin mere scrap metal.

At least I can still recycle my plant waste into compost.  I had to abandoning the autumn dig-out of the big heap last year as a family of rats had moved in!  However, four visits from the Council's exterminators later, we seem to be rat free and there is a nicely-rotted stack of stuff ready for topping up the veg beds and mulching round as the perennials start to come through.  It was even good enough to use for potting up some hydrangea cuttings I hope to sell later this year.

But that's all for now - it's time for an early bath!

Is it really almost a year...?

...since I last posted to this blog?

It looks very much like it.  Rest assured, both the garden and I are okay.  I've been concentrating my somewhat intermittent blogging efforts on the other one I write in an attempt to promote my 4mph thrillers and welfare rights lit novels and, as a result, neglected this blog.  When I've thought about updating it, I've struggled to find anything desperately important to share.  I still don't have anything that important to share but that's not really the point.  It's better to share something than nothing at all, so why not start with the first flowers of spring? 

Around here, that tends to mean snowdrops and hellebores, both of which seem to tolerate the rather wet winter conditions.  I split and moved many of the hellebore plants in autumn 2015 and wondered how well they would recover but they have put on a fantastic amount of new growth since and some may take a bit of chopping up again later this year. 

The snowdrops have been excellent this year, blooming for over a month already and with maybe another week or so in them before they finally go over.  Similarly, the snowdrops get regular lifting, splitting and replanting, the plan being to transfer more to the herb garden area 'in the green' in a couple of weeks.

Even when flowers are few and far between, there is always something to see in the garden thanks to the birds who drop by to use the feeders and bird bath.  The main visitors are blue tits and goldfinches, although we regularly see ten or more different species in a day, including a pair of robins, chaffinches, sparrows, wrens and - on a couple of occasions - a goldcrest.  Despite having a couple cotoneaster bushes in the front garden absolutely loaded with berries, we have so far been snubbed by the waxwings sighted in the area; there is still time!

Anyway, that will do for today's catch up not-very-exciting blog. 

More soon.

Promise!